Shmuel Winograd

Noted for proving major results in computational complexity and co-creating the Coppersmith–Winograd algorithm, Winograd was one of the most influential figures in the computational aspects of arithmetic. He proved several major results regarding the computational aspects of arithmetic; his contributions included the Coppersmith–Winograd algorithm and an algorithm for Fast Fourier Transforms. The Coppersmith–Winograd algorithm, named after him and Don Coppersmith, was the asymptotically fastest known algorithm for square matrix multiplication until 2010, and was frequently used as a building block in other algorithms to prove theoretical time bounds.

Winograd studied Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), receiving his B.S. and M.S. degrees in 1959. He received his Ph.D. from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, New York City in 1968. He joined the research staff at IBM in 1961, eventually becoming Director of the Mathematical Sciences Department there from 1970 to 1974 and 1980 to 1994.

In 1972, he was named IBM Fellow — the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achieve. Other awards Winograd received included: Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1974); the W. Wallace McDowell Award in 1974; Member, National Academy of Sciences in 1978; and Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1994.

He is the author of "Arithmetic Complexity of Computations" (1980), CBMS-NSF regional conference series in applied mathematics 33, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. ISBN 978-0-89871-163-9.